“I have nothing to say, Mr. Evans,” she said icily. “In fact, the most agreeable thing you could do is to leave in the morning.”
He went white and for one reverberant moment, he didn’t look like the careless, handsome man she knew, but like someone capable of genuine feeling. “You don’t mean that.”
She glared. “I do.”
If he left, she’d no longer feel confused and restless and unhappy. She’d return to the woman she’d been, busy, productive, purposeful. Not this desperate, yearning creature he’d created. Since that day in Oxford crammed with joy and betrayal, she could hardly bear to live with herself.
She watched him struggle to form some argument before a surreptitious glance around the table confirmed that their fraught discussion attracted general interest. She made a fool of herself. It was the last straw. She stalked from the room, back straight, head high and heart aching with misery.
After lingering behind the departing guests to finish a brandy he didn’t want, Richard trudged toward the entrance hall. It was well past midnight. The evening had been such a success that it ended considerably later than the usual country entertainment. Everyone except Genevieve, Fairbrother, and Lucy Warren congregated near the door.
“Rich… Christopher, we wondered where you’d got to.” Thank goodness Cam had caught himself before he let the cat out of the bag.
Before he could answer, Mrs. Warren emerged from the dining room. “My fan wasn’t there. I hope Lord Neville won’t mind waiting while I check the drawing room again.”
“You can come in the gig,” the vicar said. “Genevieve and Lord Neville have gone.”
His words struck Richard like a blow from a shovel. Cold talons of dread scored his gut. From the first, he’d mistrusted Fairbrother. He’d seen how the toad looked at Genevieve. Now her bloody father delivered her into the devil’s clutches.
“Ezekiel, that’s hardly proper,” Mrs. Warren protested.
“It’s only down the driveway and his lordship’s an old family friend. You’d just be in the way, Lucy.” Clearly the vicar hadn’t yet relinquished hope of a match between his daughter and his patron.
Damn, damn, damn. This sounded worse each minute. “How long ago?”
“What’s the matter, Richard?” Sidonie forgot to call him Christopher.
He hardly noticed. He already strode toward the open doors past the wide-eyed Hadley-Childe sisters. “I’ve got to stop them.”
The vicar frowned. “Young fellow, his lordship has known Genevieve since childhood. There’s no impropriety in sending her home in his company.”
“How long since they left?” Richard asked again.
Jonas answered. “Only a few minutes.”
Richard clapped him briefly on the shoulder as he rushed past. “Thanks. If I cross the park, I’ll catch them before they reach the road.”
The footman with custody of his pistols advanced to present the weapons. Since the last break-in, Richard had taken to traveling armed. Although God forgive him, he’d never imagined an evening at Sedgemoor’s promised danger.
“Why on earth do you want to catch them, Mr. Evans?” the vicar asked. “And what are those guns? I cannot like all this fuss. I cannot like it at all.”
Mrs. Warren’s gaze focused on Richard with dawning concern. “Do you have reason to worry?”
Given that escalating violence had marked each attempt to get the jewel, of course he had reason to worry. He lied to placate her. “I hope not.”
But as he dashed across the drive, heels clipping sharply on the gravel, he couldn’t forget the fear in Genevieve’s eyes after the proposal. Nor could Richard ignore the fact that as he wasn’t behind the recent break-ins, that left Fairbrother as the most likely culprit. The man who had expressed an interest in not only the Harmsworth Jewel but the vicar’s virginal, beautiful, and perilously unworldly daughter.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Without Aunt Lucy’s company, Genevieve would never have agreed to travel home with Lord Neville, however short the journey. Even with Aunt Lucy, she was reluctant, but her father had fretted so volubly when she demurred that eventually she’d conceded to save embarrassment.
Stifling misgivings, she settled opposite his lordship inside the carriage. The footman shut the door and Lord Neville knocked the ceiling with his cane, signaling to Greengrass, who played coachman, to drive on.
Startled Genevieve turned from staring out the window. “What about my aunt?”
“She’ll come with your father.”
Misgivings transformed into raw fear. “She’s just gone inside for her fan.”